5 Filipino Tech Startups That Are Working to Make Our Lives Easier

Much has been written about successful Filipinos in the startup world. There’s perhaps the most visible of them all: Snapchat CTO Bobby Murphy, the Filipino-American Stanford graduate who developed the popular app. You have the success story of Xurpas CEO Nix Nolledo, who built the country’s largest consumer technology company with only P 62,500 in initial capital.

Then, of course, there are men like Manny Ayala, who help promising startups reach their potential, something which he’s done in the past through his tech incubator Hatch’d, and which he continues to do in leading Endeavor Philippines, an organization which assists and mentors high-impact entrepreneurs.

While these entrepreneurs and businesspeople have already made their mark in the tech industry, naturally there’s a new generation of Filipinos, both at home and abroad, who are working on making a difference. These are just five of the most promising startups we’ve found.

IMAGE Notey

1. Notey

With so much user-generated content clogging up your various feeds, and social media channels vying for your attention with ever-evolving features, it’s still hard to find all the information you’re looking for. Enter Notey. This blog search and discovery website features 500,000 topics, curating your web experience by offering content that’s outside the mainstream.

Notey’s founders are Kevin Lepsoe and Catherine Tan, a husband-and-wife duo who quit successful banking careers to focus on their Hong Kong-based startup. Lamenting their inability to find useful travel blogs for research on an upcoming Southeast Asia trip, they came up with the idea of establishing Notey and immediately went about parsing thousands of blogs to find what they were looking for. True to their startup’s roots, Notey also has a Philippine version.

IMAGE Edukasyon.ph

2. Edukasyon.ph

As a young person, finding a career path is challenging enough. You have life-defining choices to make, and finding the right university isn’t always easy, especially if there’s a lack of quality information available online. And even once you’ve found your course, you still might not even know what your career prospects are after graduation, or if there are scholarships available to you.

If you’re a millennial who hates talking on the phone or simply like the convenience of making reservations online, you’ll find that BaseUp is a much-needed booking app for our digitally-challenged service culture. While most companies still rely on Facebook to deal with customers, BaseUp makes it easier for you to find businesses, make reservations and pay for services online.

On the business end, BaseUp helps companies manage their calendar, sales and employees all in one place, and they’ve already signed up businesses like Felipe & Sons and Regine's Salon. Founded by three friends, Gino Gervasio, Carlos Salazar and Jeph Fernandez, who are back in Manila after having studied and worked abroad, their startup’s service is the logical step forward in making the Philippine service industry a little more customer-friendly.

IMAGE Booky

4. Booky

The waiting areas in front of some of the more popular mall restaurants almost look like government offices, what with the white Monobloc chairs and unpredictable waiting times. We don’t know about you, but we'd rather spend our time eating good food than looking like we’re waiting to get our driver’s license renewed.

Fortunately, there’s Booky–an app by British-Filipino entrepreneur Ben Wintle–which helps you make better and faster dining choices. Narrow down your search by cuisine or location, have a look at menus and recommended dishes, and make a reservation, all in one go. No need to scour the interweb for outdated restaurant menus or to call ahead for a table.

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IMAGE Medifi

5. Medifi

While we appreciate the stack of old magazines to brush up on last year’s celebrity news, we dislike doctors’ waiting rooms even more than the long queues in government offices. It’s not just the inconvenient schedules, long waiting times and coughing seatmates, going to the doctor usually just isn’t a pleasant experience.

With Medifi, founders Jay Fajardo, Freddy Razon Gonzalez, Martin Marty and Mooney Castillo provide an online platform which allows patients to speak with top medical professionals without having to step foot into a hospital. This is especially convenient if you’d like to consult one of the professionals from their roster of US-based doctors, which is something the app offers. In addition to video calls, Medifi’s data-driven approach allows physicians to access a wealth of medical information during consultations, including data from your fitbit and other personal health devices.

In the 15 years since The Wire, Elba has starred in blockbusters and art house films, won a Golden Globe, released two albums, founded a production house, received an OBE, launched a clothing label and made his directing debut. He's only just getting started.